Part 17

October 25, 1812, in latitude 29 deg. N., longitude 29 deg. 30' W., Decatur fell in with the British ship Macedonian, of 49 carriage guns (the odd one shifting). This frigate was the largest of her class, two years old, four months out of dock, and reputed one of the best sailers in the English service. Taking advantage of the wind, the enemy fought at her own distance. The battle lasted one hour and fifty minutes. The United States poured such an incessant fire into the Macedonian that the shouts of her crew were plainly heard. She lost her mizzenmast, fore and main topsails and main yard, and was much damaged in the hull. Her official list was, 36 killed and 48 wounded, that of the Americans being 5 killed and 7 wounded. Decatur could have continued his cruise, but was obliged to accompany his crippled prize into port, where she was equipped as an American frigate. The young officer, as may be supposed, was hailed by the country as its foremost naval hero. Congress and several of the States voted him valuable testimonials for his gallantry.

The following year, Decatur attempted to gain the open sea from New York, through Long Island Sound, with the Macedonian and Hornet. A British squadron of superior force, however, compelled him to run into the Thames River in Connecticut, and he lay off New London for months unable to get to sea. He was naturally impatient at being thus cooped up, and bitterly complained that traitors on shore, by means of "blue lights," warned the enemy whenever at night he prepared to break out of his imprisonment. He sent a challenge to Commander Sir Thomas Hardy of the blockading squadron, offering to fight two of the British frigates with two of his own, but the offer was declined and Decatur's frigates were afterward dismantled.

Returning to New York, he assumed command of a squadron bound for the East Indies, and put to sea in the President. January 14, 1815, through the blunder of his pilot, his ship heavily grounded while going out. The next morning, Decatur discovered the British squadron in pursuit, consisting of the Majestic razee, the Endymion, Tenedos, and Pomona frigates and a brig. Of these the Endymion was the fleetest. After drawing her away from the rest, Decatur turned and attacked her. She was crippled and her battery silenced, when the American resumed her flight. By this time, however, the other ships had come up and opened fire. Escape was impossible and Decatur surrendered to the British squadron.

Returning to the United States under parole, he was despatched to the Mediterranean, on the conclusion of peace, to punish the Algerine pirates that were preying upon our commerce. He did his work thoroughly and well, compelling the Dey to sign the most humiliating treaty ever made with a Christian nation. He obtained similar redress at Tunis and Tripoli.

Decatur was subsequently created Navy Commissioner and made his residence in Washington at Kalorama, formerly occupied by Joel Benton.

Commodore Barron's suspension began February 8, 1808. He resorted to the merchant service, and was abroad when war was declared. His suspension terminated about eight months afterward, some time after which he reported himself to the navy department, by letter, for duty, the war continuing two years after his becoming available for command. He did not return to the United States until the close of 1818. He declared that he had used every effort to reach home before during hostilities, but was prevented. A court, presided over by Captain Charles Stewart, afterward declared its judgment that such effort had not been made by Barron.

The latter felt resentful toward Decatur, and called him to account for certain expressions he had been told were used by him reflecting upon his conduct as an officer. When appealed to, Decatur, as Navy Commissioner, declared that he held no personal enmity toward Barron; he deemed it unjust to other officers of the navy that his request to be restored to command should be granted.

Barron opened a sharp correspondence with Decatur, which continued nearly a year. Mutual friends, or rather enemies, fanned the trouble between them, which ended in a challenge from Barron which was promptly accepted by Decatur. The duel took place at Bladensburg, on the morning of March 22, 1820, Commodore Bainbridge was Decatur's second, and Captain Jesse D. Elliott served Barron in a similar capacity. Decatur chivalrously surrendered his right to name the distance, which Barron made the shortest possible, eight paces, on account of his defective eyesight. Decatur was without a superior as a pistol shot, and, declaring that he did not wish the life of his antagonist, said he would only wound him in the hip.

At the word "two," both fired so exactly together, that only one report was heard. Barron was struck in the right hip, as Decatur intended, and sank to the ground. Decatur stood erect a moment and was seen to turn pale, compress his lips, and press his hand against his side. Then he fell, the ball having passed through his abdomen.

"I am mortally wounded," he said, "and wish that it had been in the defence of my country." His attendants helped him to his feet, and started slowly toward the waiting carriage. His pain was so great that after a few paces he sank exhausted, near where Barron was stretched on the ground. While the two thus lay near each other, waiting to be carried off, they shook hands, and each freely forgave the other.

Decatur was lifted into the carriage, which reached Washington at half-past ten. He would not allow himself to be carried into his home until his wife and two nieces were sent to the upper floor where they could not see the dreadful sight. Wishing to save the distracted ones from the grief of witnessing his suffering, he refused them permission to enter the room where he lay.

The news caused consternation and sorrow in Washington, where no man was more honored and loved than he. He thanked his friends for their sympathy, told them he had not long to live, and signed his will. "I am a dying man," said he, "and only regret that my wound was not received on the quarter-deck in the service of my country."

When the surgeons proposed to probe for the bullet, he said it was not worth while as it had done all the harm it could. He remarked that he did not believe it possible for a person to suffer so much pain and yet live. But not once did he utter a groan. His agony was beyond description and did not cease until half-past ten, when he died.

It seemed as if the whole male population of Washington and the adjacent county were present at the funeral, besides most of the officers of the government, members of Congress, and resident foreign ministers. The _National Intelligencer_, in an extra, said: "A hero has fallen. Commodore Stephen Decatur, one of the first officers of our navy, the pride of his country, the gallant and noble-hearted gentleman, is no more. He expired a few minutes ago, of the mortal wound received in the duel this morning. Mourn, Columbia! for one of thy brightest stars is set! A son without fear and without reproach, in the fulness of his fame, in the prime of his usefulness, has descended into the tomb."

[Signature of the author.]

OLIVER HAZARD PERRY

(1785-1819)

Oliver Hazard Perry was born in Rhode Island, August 23, 1785. The late Commodore Mackenzie, of the navy, who possessed what we may term a fine biographical faculty, has traced in his interesting narrative of the Life of Perry, with fond minuteness, the early incidents of the boy's career. The chief characteristics, he tells us, "were an uncommon share of beauty, a sweetness and gentleness of disposition which corroborated the expression of his countenance, and a perfect disregard of danger, amounting to apparent unconsciousness." This biographer gives some curious anecdotes of his school days.

Suffice it to say, that the family removing to Newport about this time, Perry found good opportunities of education at that place, and availed himself of them in a manly spirit. He was especially instructed in mathematics, and their application to navigation and nautical astronomy. As proof of the boy's ingenuousness, and the interest he excited in intelligent observers, it is related that Count Rochambeau, the son of the General of the Revolution, then residing at Newport, was particularly attracted to him, and that Bishop Seabury, on his visitation, marked him as a boy of religious feeling. These are traits which shape the man; we shall find them reappearing in the maturity of Perry's life, in his worth, humanity, and refinement.

The boy was but thirteen when his father, in 1798, was called into the naval service of his country in the spirited effort made by President Adams to resist the aggressions of France upon the ocean. He took the command of a small frigate, built under his direction in Rhode Island, named the General Greene, and carried with him to sea his son Oliver as a midshipman, at the express solicitation of the youth. The General Greene was actively employed in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, giving all its officers abundant opportunity for practice in the infant service. The French war flurry after a while blew over, as the Directory, the mainspring of these aggressions, lost power; peace was patched up, and Jefferson shortly after inaugurated an unwholesome pacific policy by a sweeping reduction of the navy, as if it were not small enough already. In this mutilating operation the elder Perry was dropped, the younger one fortunately retained.

The navy, however, was soon revived by the demands of the nation to resist the iniquitous and insulting depredations upon life and property inflicted by the Barbary powers. The United States had borne far too patiently with these injuries, though she had the honor of being in advance of the old powers of Europe in resisting them. The Mediterranean became the scene of many a chivalrous exploit of our early officers, a score of whom, headed by Preble, Bainbridge, Decatur, Somers, and others of that stamp of fiery and indomitable valor, gained immortal laurels by their deeds of daring in conflict with the infidel.

The young Perry served as midshipman in the frigate Adams, which sailed from Newport, in 1802, to join Commodore Morris' command at Gibraltar. His ship was for some time employed in blockading a Tripolitan at that port; a tedious but instructive service in manoeuvring, at the close of which Perry, in consequence of his accomplishments, was promoted by his captain to the duties of a lieutenant. The frigate was then employed as a convoy, making the tour of the northern ports. This gave Perry an opportunity to study scenes of the old world, which can never lose their influence in the formation of the man of education and refinement.

In 1809, Perry got to sea in command of an armed schooner, the Revenge, which was employed on the coast service. While on the southern coast, he had an opportunity to gain distinction, which he did not fail to avail himself of, in cutting out a stolen American vessel from under the guns of a British ship in Spanish waters, off Florida. Conveying his prize off the coast, he was threatened by his Majesty's ship Gore, of double his force, when, having, as Mackenzie says, "no idea of being 'Leopardized,'" he put his little schooner in readiness for boarding at a moment's notice--a spirited resolution of great bravery, which he would no doubt have carried out, had the British vessel insisted upon overhauling the Revenge. While engaged in cruising off Connecticut and Rhode Island, in the beginning of 1811, he unfortunately lost his vessel, through an error of the pilot, on the Watch Hill Reef, opposite Fisher's Island, as he was sailing from Newport to New London. Every seamanlike effort was made to save the vessel, and when all was unavailing, Perry showed equal skill and resolution in landing the crew in a heavy January swell, with a violent wind. He was himself the last to leave the vessel. He was not merely acquitted of neglect, but his conduct was extolled by a court of inquiry.

He was, of course, thrown temporarily out of command by the loss of his vessel; an interval of repose which he hastened to turn to account by forming a matrimonial alliance with Miss Elizabeth Champlin Mason, of an influential family at Newport, to whom he had become engaged several years before, on his arrival from the Mediterranean. The wedding took place in May, 1811, affording him ample opportunity for the honeymoon, previous to the actual outbreak of the war impending with England.

This event found him at Newport, with the rank of master commandant, in charge of the flotilla of gunboats keeping watch in the harbor. It was a service not altogether adapted to satisfy the ambitious spirit of a young officer, but it was important in itself, and became, in Perry's hands, a step to future eminence. His course, at this time, illustrates a valuable truth, that no honorable employment is profitless to a man of genius. He will in some way turn it to account. Constructing gunboats, and recruiting men in port, were services not calculated to make any great blaze in a despatch, but they conducted Perry to his glorious bulletins of victory, and the resounding praises of the nation.

He saw the new field of military operations opening on the lakes, and his experienced eye must have seen as well the certain difficulties, as the possible honors of the situation. It was not the post which an officer with the claims of Perry would have sought, while brilliant victories were being won, in the eye of the world, on the vast theatre of the ocean. Others, however, were before him on that element.

Despairing of a command at sea, he offered himself to Commodore Chauncey, who had recently been placed at the head of the lake service. His character was understood by this officer, and the proffer accepted. The necessary communications were made to the Government, and in the middle of February, in 1813, he was ordered to join Chauncey at Sackett's Harbor, with the picked men of his Newport flotilla. He lost no time in reporting himself at the appointed spot. His destination was Lake Erie, where he was to supervise the construction of two vessels to be employed in the next campaign, and he was anxious to get to the work; but Chauncey, who felt the need of his aid, detained him for a while on Lake Ontario. He, however, toward the end of March, reached Erie, where the vessels were building.

His experience in constructing gunboats at Newport was now of avail to him. He put the defence of the works, which had been greatly neglected, in a state of efficiency, and set himself to the collection of supplies, workmen, and an armament: no easy matter at that day and in that place in the wilderness; for such, as compared with our own time, it then was. The labors of Perry in this work of preparation were, in fact, of the most arduous character. They should not be forgotten as a heavy item to his credit in the sum total of his victory. Three gunboats and two brigs were launched and equipped in May.

It was at this time that he received advices that Chauncey was about to make an attack on the British post of Fort George, at the mouth of the Niagara River. He had been promised a share in this adventure, and hastened to the scene. The incidents of this journey show the spirit of the man. In his own words, in a letter describing this passage of his life: "On the evening of May 23d, I received information, about sunset, that Commodore Chauncey would in a day or two arrive at Niagara, when an attack would be made on Fort George. He had previously promised me the command of the seamen and marines that might land from the fleet. Without hesitation I determined to join him. I left Erie about dark in a small four-oared open boat. The night was squally and very dark. After encountering headwinds and many difficulties, I arrived at Buffalo on the evening of the 24th, refreshed, and remained there until daylight; I then passed the whole of the British lines in my boat, within musket-shot. Passing Strawberry Island, several people on our side of the river hailed and beckoned me on shore. On landing they pointed out about forty men on the end of Grand Island, who, doubtless, were placed there to intercept boats. In a few moments I should have been in their hands. I then proceeded with more caution. As we arrived at Schlosser, it rained violently. No horse could be procured. I determined to push forward on foot; walked about two miles and a half, when the rain fell in such torrents I was obliged to take shelter in a house at hand. The sailors whom I had left with the boat, hearing of public horses on the commons, determined to catch one for me. They found an old passing one which could not run away, and brought him in, rigged a rope from the boat into a bridle, and borrowed a saddle without either stirrup, girth, or crupper. Thus accoutred they pursued me, and found me at the house where I had stopped. The rain ceasing, I mounted; my legs hung down the sides of the horse, and I was obliged to steady the saddle by holding by the mane. In this style I entered the camp, it raining again most violently. Colonel Porter being the first to discover me, insisted upon my taking his horse, as I had some distance to ride to the other end of the camp, off which the Madison lay."

Having thus reached head-quarters, arrangements were rapidly made, and the landing of the troops assigned to Perry. In the ignorance or inexperience of some of the officers, there was considerable confusion in directing the boats in the river, which was remedied by Perry's vigilance and decision. He was everywhere, in the midst of danger, guiding and directing; the unexpected attack of the British was met by his energy, the landing effected, and the object of the expedition accomplished. This victory opened the port of Black Rock, where several American vessels were collected, which Perry undertook to get into Lake Erie against the strong current of the river, a feat which was accomplished with extraordinary fatigue; so that he returned to his station at Erie, with a respectable addition of five vessels to his own newly launched little fleet in that harbor. The American force was composed of the brigs Lawrence and Niagara, of twenty guns each, and seven smaller vessels, numbering in all fifty-four guns. Captain Barclay, commander of the British forces on the lake, had the Detroit, of nineteen guns, the Queen Charlotte, Lady Provost, and three other vessels, numbering altogether sixty-three guns. The range of the enemy's guns gave them the advantage at a distance, when the corresponding American fire was ineffectual. The Americans, too, were under a disadvantage in the enfeebled state of the crews, by the general illness which prevailed among them. The British force had undoubtedly the superiority in trained men, as compared with Perry's extemporized miscellaneous command, and untried junior officers. The latter proved, however, to be of the right material.

On the morning of the engagement the American fleet was among the islands off Malden at Put in Bay, when the British fleet bore up. There was some difficulty at first in clearing the islands, and the nature of the wind seemed likely to throw Perry upon the defensive, when a southeast breeze springing up, enabled him to bear down upon the enemy. This was at ten o'clock of a fine autumnal morning. Perry arranged his vessels in line, taking the lead in his flag-ship, the Lawrence, on which he now raised the signal for action, a blue flag, inscribed in large white letters, with the words of the dying Lawrence, "Don't give up the ship!" He accompanied this movement with an appeal to his men. "My brave lads, this flag contains the last words of Captain Lawrence. Shall I hoist it?" "Ay, ay, sir!" was the willing response. In this way he cheered the men in the awful pause, "a dead silence of an hour and a half," preceding the action, for in the light breeze the vessels were long in overcoming the intermediate distance of several miles.

Perry, who knew the perils of the day, prepared his papers as if for death. He leaded the public documents in readiness to be cast overboard, and--a touching trait of these moments--gave a hurried perusal to his wife's letters, and tore them to pieces lest they should be read by the enemy.

The awful silence is suddenly broken by a bugle sounded on board the Detroit, and the cheers of the British seamen. A shot from that vessel fell short of its mark. The Lawrence bears on to meet the fire, accompanied by the other vessels of the command in appointed order, each destined for its appropriate antagonist. At noon the British fire from the superior long guns, was telling fearfully on the American force, when Perry made all sail for close quarters, bringing the Lawrence within reach of the Detroit. He maintained a steady, well-directed fire from his carronades, assisted by the Scorpion and Ariel. The destruction on the deck of the Lawrence was fearful. Out of 100 well men, says Mackenzie, who had gone into action, 22 were killed and 61 wounded. We shall not insult the humanity of the reader by the details of this fearful carnage. It has probably never been exceeded in the terrors of the "dying deck," in naval warfare.

In the midst of this storm of conflict, Perry, finding his ship getting disabled, and seeing the Niagara uninjured at a safe distance, resolved to change his flag to that vessel. He had half a mile to traverse, exposed to the fire of the enemy, in an open boat. Nothing deterred, with the exclamation, "If a victory is to be gained I'll gain it," he made the passage, part of the time standing as a target for the hostile guns. Fifteen minutes were passed exposed to this plunging fire, which splintered the oars and covered the boat with spray. The Lawrence, stripped of her officers and men, was compelled to surrender.

Perry instantly bore up to the Detroit, the guns of which were plied resolutely, when she became entangled with her consort, the Queen Charlotte, and the Niagara poured a deadly fire into both vessels. This cannonade decided the battle in seven minutes, when the enemy surrendered. The American loss in this engagement was 27 killed and 96 wounded; that of the British 41 killed and 94 wounded. Gallant actions were performed and noble men fell on both sides. It was every way a splendid victor, placing the genius of Perry and his magnanimous, spirited conduct throughout, in the highest rank of naval exertion.

The memorable letters, brief, at once eloquent and modest, which he wrote that afternoon announcing his victory, are too characteristic to be omitted in any personal account of the man. Addressing General Harrison, he writes: "Dear General--We have met the enemy and they are ours. Two ships, two brigs, one schooner, and one sloop. Yours, with very great respect and esteem. O. H. Perry." The other was to the Secretary of the Navy: "Sir, it has pleased the Almighty to give to the arms of the United States a signal victory over their enemies on this lake. The British squadron, consisting of two ships, two brigs, one schooner, and one sloop, have this moment surrendered to the force under my command, after a sharp conflict. I have the honor to be, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant. O. H. Perry." In consonance with this simple eloquence, the mark of a master-mind, was his chivalrous care of his wounded and conduct toward his prisoners.